Guided Without Direction
'BACKGROUND' "Guided without Direction" is the first track of the 2008 album by Beyette called "Change ". "This song was the first track written in the sound of the album, and everything else that ended up on the final track list came after this song was written, composed and a scratch track was recorded. My friend Nate loaned me his yamaha guitar that was basically a generic stratocaster type guitar by a reputable brand and I just let loose with it. I never really owned an electic guitar, and the last time I borrowed an electric guitar from someone it was when I was much worse at performing in rhythm to the point where I would write everything on a sequencer, but after playing so much bass over the years and getting quite comfortable on acoustic guitar for writing leads and melodies, and getting better at performing for a recording or a show, the time was very much of the essence for when I borrowed this guitar. The simple 3 note riff was a simplified version of another guitar riff that was going to be used for this song. I instead made all the changes in the track via tone and instrument layers, because the riff repeats from the beginning of the song to the end. So this song is essentially just a loop, but the progression of it is found on the melodies and sounds that are over the loop." The lyrics of the song, from Beyette's perspective, describe a character defending and explaining his role in reality. "Most of these songs are personal in their origins, the character in the song is me at the age that I wrote it, but the true interpretations of the songs I've generally left to mystery and emotional connection sometimes using abstraction." The unique tone of the main hook of the song is acheived by blending electric bass, distorted electric guitar and distorted synthesizer using a saw wave. "This threefold layer of the riff really seemed to get that power sound I was going for. This track, to me, is very heavy and very exciting." 'LIVE PERFORMANCE' "Guided Without Direction" was performed live on August 30, 2009 on the corner of Congress St and St John St at a place that used to be called "the Station". "It's a crazy story how the first live show came to be and it was a great time for both the people that came to listen as well as for me to finally get on stage and perform my own music with a real band. My band on the other hand did not have as much fun I don't think, we were all under a lot of pressure and they did really good on such short notice, but the story to all that is for another time. A lot of really cool things happened that night." This song is also an initial demonstration of a VST synthesizer plugin that was used throughout the rest of the album and featured on numerous future Beyette releases. "CM Dominator is a really great sounding synth I first got for free on a dvd disc of Computer Music Magazine. On this record I started to try to stray away from presets and really study what each knob does. I read a tutorial in the magazine that started from the Init preset and whenever I use this synth I usually start from there and adjust all the settings manually till I get the sound I'm after." Synthesizer didn't play a big role on the sound of "Change " in the grand scheme of things, but the patch that is heard on "Guided Without Direction" was saved as a preset and used and modified for other songs. Dominator can also be heard on "The Open Door" The first track has been stated by Dustin to often be the introduction track for his albums. In this case it was a lyrical introduction as well as a sonic introduction and a character-driven mindset introduction. The mellower followup track on Change's track 2 was "Still Afraid to Ask " featuring the vocals of a frequent collaborator, G Dubbs. 'LYRICS' Category:Beyette Category:Songs Category:Change